Annan Refuses to Disclose Finances 

With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff 
July 1, 2005
Newsmax
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/1/85449.shtml
Despite repeated pledges of openness and transparency, U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan has refused several requests to open his finances to public examination.
The decision comes as the investigation into the scandal plagued Oil for Food program begins to enter its final stages. 
Annan briefed members of the Security Council on the latest developments in the investigation Wednesday, but would not tell reporters the details. 
A final report by the investigative panel headed by former Fed chief Paul Volcker, is due in late summer. 
An interim report issued in March stated that the investigation did not find any criminal action by Annan, but reserved a determination on his son Kojo. 
The younger Annan worked for a U.N. contractor, Cotecna Inspection Services, which is under investigation for allegations of fraud. 
When the interim report was issued, Annan and his chief of staff Mark Malloch Brown, rushed to tell reporters that the Volcker panel had exonerated the U.N. chief. 
That brought personal rebukes by Mark Pieth (a panel member) as well as by Volcker himself, who called a news conference to insist that no criminal action by Annan had been discovered yet. 
He went on to proclaim that no definitive determination on the senior Annan will be made until the final report is issued. 
Meanwhile, numerous published reports describe the U.N. chief as becoming increasing depressed over press coverage of the Oil for Food scandal. it just won't go away, one Annan staffer confided. 
NewsMax's Stewart Stogel has been told, by several U.N. staffers, about how the Annan family has exploited loopholes in U.N. tax and financial disclosure rules. 
The United Nations is self-policing on the issue of taxes and finances. 
It does however claim to use U.S. government rules as a model, albeit selectively. 
When it comes to personal finances, those rules which govern world leaders such as George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirc, don't seem to apply to Kofi Annan, though his salary also comes from taxpayers. 
Trying to explain Annan's refusal to release his personal finances, newly appointed spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: 
As part of our ongoing management reform process, we are looking at best practices in governments and other institutions regarding the issue of financial disclosure. Specifically, what gets disclosed and to whom. 
What was not said that is that the review comes in the 9th year of a 10-year term. 
Annan's current and final 5-year term ends January 1, 2007. 
Therefore, any decision on financial disclosure reform will likely come after the secretary-general leaves office. 
This as the U.N. tries to lift itself out of the worst financial scandal in its 60-year history. 
As to the Annan finances, U.N. staffers claim that Annan's son Kojo (from whom the U.N. chief has publicly distanced himself) has used the U.N. official residence for personal parties several times, never offering the world body any compensation for the functions. 
More importantly, U.N. security officials have complained the younger Annan refused to disclose the identities of his house guests. 
We had no idea who these people were, they could have been terrorists, lamented a senior security official. 
Other U.N. staffers want to know what the secretary-general does with fees he collects for his numerous speaking engagements around the world. 
Based on fees paid to such luminaries as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, the income could reach several hundred thousand dollars a year, even into the millions, as in the Clinton case. 
The disposition of an apartment the Annans owned on Manhattan's Roosevelt Island is not known. 
Nor is the value of a home owned by the family in Sweden and property in his home country of Ghana known. 
It also not known what if any securities are owned by the Annans or whether like U.S. or UK public officials they have been placed in a blind trust. 
Annan's staff did release some details on his finances. 
The Secretary General's yearly salary came to a total of $312,189 his take home was $300,420. That gave the world's number one diplomat a tax bite of less than 4%. 
Not bad, considering almost all his living expenses are paid for by the U.N. and not reflected in the disclosed finances. 
It is also considerably less than the average income tax collected from U.N. staffers which hovers around 25%. 
Follow the money, do not give up, explained a veteran U.N. official who insists that much more on the U.N.'s financial activities has yet to be discovered.